IronPython in Action (Paperback)

by Michael Foord (Author), Christian Muirhead (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In 2005, Microsoft quietly announced an initiative to bring dynamic languages to the .NET platform. The starting point for this project was a .NET implementation of Python, dubbed IronPython. After a couple years of incubation, IronPython is ready for real-world use. It blends the simplicity, elegance, and dynamism of Python with the power of the .NET framework.

IronPython in Action offers a comprehensive, hands-on introduction to Microsoft's exciting new approach for programming the .NET framework. It approaches IronPython as a first class .NET language, fully integrated with the .NET environment, Visual Studio, and even the open-source Mono implementation. You'll learn how IronPython can be embedded as a ready-made scripting language into C# and VB.NET programs, used for writing full applications or for web development with ASP. Even better, you'll see how IronPython works in Silverlight for client-side web programming.

IronPython opens up exciting new possibilities. Because it's a dynamic language, it permits programming paradigms not easily available in VB and C#. In this book, authors Michael Foord and Christian Muirhead explore the world of functional programming, live introspection, dynamic typing and duck typing , metaprogramming, and more.

IronPython in Action explores these topics with examples, making use of the Python interactive console to explore the .NET framework with live objects. The expert authors provide a complete introduction for programmers to both the Python language and the power of the .NET framework. The book also shows how to extend IronPython with C#, extending C# and VB.NET applications with Python, using IronPython with .NET 3.0 and Powershell, IronPython as a Windows scripting tool, and much more.

About the Author
Michael Foord has many years of Python under his belt as well as hands-on commercial experience with IronPython. Michael has written many articles on Python, including the official "HOWTO" Fetch Internet Resources Using urllib2". He has also written articles on IronPython and has spoken about IronPython in the U.S., England, and Poland. He is the author of several popular open-source Python projects and has a blog on all things Python.

Christian Muirhead began his career in a high-volume database environment, and for the last eight years has been building database-driven websites. He has five years of experience working with C#, the .NET framework, and ASP.NET. he has been using Python in most of his projects since discovering it in 1999, including building web applications for the BBC using Django. He is now working at Resolver Systems developing a next-generation data-modeling tool in IronPython.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications; Pap/Pas edition (March 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933988339
• ISBN-13: 978-1933988337
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #25,479 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended, April 13, 2009

By	Techie Evan - See all my reviews

Written by Python Experts who have developed complex applications with IronPython, this excellent book covers IronPython 2 and provides several code examples illustrating how faithful IronPython 2 is to Python 2.5 and how .Net and Python concepts map to each other. The diverse examples range from showing how IronPython integrates nicely with various .Net libraries such as Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight, to how Python's advanced features can be used effectively in agile testing, and to how C# and VB.Net applications can embed the IronPython Engine to run Python code and scripts. The book also tackles areas in which the integration between IronPython and .Net is currently not straightforward, providing guidance on how to work around these issues, as well as information on how Microsoft may address these remaining issues. Overall, I think the authors did an excellent job, and even readers who may be relatively new to either Python or .Net will find the book an easy and valuable read because of the many little things that the authors did (e.g., thoughtful and concise explanations, copious code, great references, etc) to make it so!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for learning and to have on hand as a reference!, April 26, 2009

By	Sarah Dutkiewicz "The Coding Geekette" (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What I liked best about this book is that in the beginning, IronPython was discussed while looking at it from two different angles - covering what a .NET developer would get out of IronPython and a what Python developer would get out of it as well. The examples in this book were easy to follow and very applicable to everyday programming. The book flowed well, covering the fundamentals and then stepping up into more complex concepts (WPF, ASP.NET, system administration, web services, databases, and more).

I had reviewed this book before it came out, and I had mentioned that I'd buy a copy of it when it came out, even though I already have the eBook. I purchased this through Amazon.com, and I now keep it on hand as a reference while I'm coding in IronPython or when I'm giving a presentation on IronPython at the various events in the region of MI/OH/KY/TN.

Overall, I would recommend IronPython in Action for anyone wanting to learn IronPython. Even if you're an experienced IronPython programmer, this book would be great to have on hand as a reference.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars makes it easy to get started using IronPython right away., May 27, 2009

By	Scott C. Koon "lazycoder.com" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've always wanted to use Python more. Mostly I use it to write little one off scripts when I want to move a bunch of files around or parse some text. I was really excited when Manning asked to to review IronPython in Action because I wanted to dive a little deeper into Python and possibly use it in some web applications. "IronPython in Action" makes it easy to get started using IronPython right away.

The book starts out with an introduction to Python itself and continues with a general description of how IronPython can use .NET types. It starts off by showing how to build a Winforms app using IronPython. If anything exposes the cruel, unnecessary complexity of .NET, it's got to be a Winforms app. The IronPython examples are easy to follow and it's always fun to create and manipulate a Winforms app using the IronPython console.

Chapter 4 talks about using Design patterns in IronPython. This is a refreshing change from most language books where patterns aren't mentioned at all. The chapter builds an IronPython application and uses the MVC pattern for the overall architecture and the command pattern for the implementation of the menu bar events.

Chapter 7 discusses agile testing and unit testing using IronPython. I almost dropped the book in amazement. Unit testing is almost never mentioned in any language book and is relegated to a niche or advanced topic. Find a book about any other .NET language that mentions unit testing that doesn't have the word "testing" in the title. This alone sets the quality of this book far above other language books I have read. It's not just enough, in my opinion, to discuss the syntax of the language. You have to teach the reader how to use the language in your everyday work.

The next section, section3, deals with a few core UI frameworks commonly used during .NET development, WPF, Silverlight, and ASP.NET, as well as showing how you can use IronPython to administer your system. Performing tedious tasks is my most common use of IronPython. I use it to automate moving files that fit a specific pattern out of my "downloads" directory to their proper places. It was great to learn a few new techniques for using IronPython in Powershell.

The last section talks about extending IronPython using C#, something which it sounds like should be avoided unless you just can't achieve decent performance with the equivalent IronPython code, and using IronPython as an embedde scripting engine. Python is used a lot in game programming because it's easy to embed. The nuts and bolts of the game engine will be written in low-level C/Assembly while the game logic and story is written in Python. I love the idea of having an embedded scripting engine in my application that will allow me to quickly extend my application at runtime. The user need to perform a new calculation on some data? Just send them an IronPython script and have them put it in a directory. It's a great idea and the book describes exactly how to do just that.

My overall feeling about this book is that it's a great book. The authors use the same humor and dry wit that Python is known for to great effect. Making the digestion of a very different language easier. I'm sure that as I continue to experiment with IronPython that I'll keep this book close at hand.